Author:
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: May 14, 2002
Terror struck in the posh Patliputra
Colony area last evening after a Coca-Cola bottling plant here was bombed
by a mysterious "swadeshi" outfit, which left behind leaflets claiming
a "bin Laden-Coke pact" to flood India with "foreign consumer items".
The Bihar outfit, Swadeshi Chetna
Abhijan, is unattached to any political party and a stranger to the acknowledged
brand of swadeshi propagators like the Swadeshi Jagran Manch. The BJP also
disowned it.
According to additional director-general
of police, Patna zone, A.R. Sinha, a group of motorcycle-borne youths raided
the bottling plant last evening and raised slogans against the company
when stopped by security personnel. Before leaving, the gang hurled bombs,
two of which exploded on one side of the wall, causing some damage. One
unexploded bomb was found inside the plant. One of the slogans printed
on the leaflets which the police later seized read: "In this country, water,
land and air are our own. But why are the foreign commodities?"
"Watankophirgirvi na rakh dena watanwalo,
shahido ne bari mushkil se azaadi dilayi thi (Oh countrymen, don't let
the nation be mortgaged once again. The martyrs had given us this freedom
after a long struggle)," the leaflets said. The pamphlets claimed that
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, Saudi terror mastermind Osama bin
Laden and Coke were conspiring to "sell" the country. "Kya aap bin Laden
ka samarthak hain?" the Abhijan asked, urging people to unite against the
imaginary triple entente. Its strident swadeshi sentiment was reflected
in the way the organisation compared foreign drinks to foreign urine. It
also explained how foreign drinks contained poisons like BVO which are
harmful for the natives.
The Abhijan warned that the country's
home-grown confectioners would not spare the foreigners. Naming one such
network owner, it said Indian cold drink manufacturers would soon take
up arms against multinational companies.
Sinha felt the outfit may not be
real. "We are trying to investigate their antecedents and the causes of
their attack on the bottling plant," he said, adding that the slogans could
be a ploy to mislead the police about their actual motive. "Had the outfit
been real, it would not have named an Indian company... planning to attack
the multinationals. The attack could lead the police to something very
different," he said. Investigators said the attack could be related to
an extortion racket but this was yet to be confirmed.
While the police have begun raiding
hideouts of known antisocial elements, the tone and tenor of the campaign
literature prompted some parties to blame the RSS and the BJP. A Rashtriya
Janata Dal minister said the BJP was trying to whip up fake swadeshi sentiments
in the state.
State BJP spokesperson and party
vice-president Kiran Ghai dismissed the allegation. "We have never
heard anything about this organisation before. The BJP does not have any
connection with whatever was spoken in the campaign literature. We demand
a thorough probe into the incident," she said.
Senior executives of Coke from Delhi
and Calcutta are camping here but refused to speak to the media. Sources
in the company said the officials were taking to all the employees and
trying to assess the situation.
